Applications for the Shift Year 2026 open on February 2nd.
The Shift Year is a one-year program, accessible after a Master's degree (Bac +5), focused on sustainable transformations. Created in 2021 and offered on the Metz campus, it welcomes around twenty students each year. The Shift Year is a laboratory for training processes and content, and a pioneering and unique program for taking action in favor of sustainable transformations. To apply: here
The Shift Year in four words: Systemic, Collective Intelligence, Action, Fieldwork
Here are seven key points to understand this program.
1. A one-year, full-time program on the Metz campus.
It is aimed at students with a Bac+5 level (engineers on a gap year or completing their studies at a grande école, and students holding a Master’s degree). The program offers a full year dedicated to ecological, social, and economic transitions.
2. 80% of the time is spent in the field.
The Shift Year is not a theoretical program: it is built around immersions, site visits, meetings with public and private stakeholders, and concrete missions entrusted to students by public and private clients.
3. A systemic approach to transition challenges
Energy, water, biodiversity, resources, economics, geopolitics, art, and anthropology… Major topics are studied in all their complexity and interconnections, combining engineering, economics, the humanities, and field experience.
4. A diversity of profiles for collective enrichment
Each year, the cohorts bring together different skills and talents, enabling a multi-angled approach on the topics covered. The program’s content and formats are co-constructed with the students each year.
5. Collective intelligence as a learning method
Debates, controversies, co-construction, and decision-making under uncertainty: the Shift Year trains students to think differently, act meaningfully, and respond to tomorrow’s challenges in an uncertain, complex, and unpredictable environment.
6. A long immersion semester to turn theory into practice
After an initial “Transitions” semester, the second immersion semester (March–August) is devoted to a six-month internship within a committed organization, allowing students to apply the skills they have acquired.
7. Les Rendez-vous de la Shift: an open program for everyone
Roundtables, conferences, debates… These events are open to everyone (not just those promoting the Shift Year) and offer an opportunity to discover this program and exchange ideas with internationally recognized experts (for example, the philosopher Eric Sadin, the demographer Gilles Pison, and the three authors of the upcoming event on February 10th (see the section)). calendar)
True to CentraleSupélec’s scientific values, the Shift Year is therefore a unique program aligned with contemporary challenges. More than a space for pedagogical experimentation, it is a year of transformation based on fieldwork, interdisciplinarity, and collective action, designed to prepare students to act in a world in transition.
To apply: here
